At a Glance
- The Loyalton Fire in Northern California spawned at least one fire tornado on Saturday.
- A tornado warning was issued by the National Weather Service.
A wildfire in Northern California on Saturday spawned at least one fire tornado that prompted the National Weather Service to issue a tornado warning.
The Loyalton Fire in Lassen County, California, burned intensely amid hot and dry conditions on Saturday afternoon.
Intense wildfires can sometimes create their own weather, resulting in the formation of a pyrocumulus cloud. These clouds typically form in association with wildfires or volcanic eruptions due to the intense heating of the air which cools and condenses as it ascends.
On rare occasions, this situation can lead to the formation of a fire tornado. A fire tornado spawned by the Loyalton Fire on Saturday is shown in the tweet below.
Doppler radar detected rotation in the area of the Loyalton Fire, which caused the National Weather Service (NWS) to issue a rare tornado warning for "a fire induced tornado and outflow winds in excess of 60 mph." The text of the tornado warning issued by the NWS on Saturday afternoon is shown below.
The warning indicated that the area of the possible fire tornadoes had zero population, but was an extremely dangerous situation for firefighters.
This is not the first time we've seen a fire tornado in Northern California.
In July 2018, a giant fire whirl generated by the Carr Fire in Redding, California, produced wind damage equivalent to an EF3 tornado, a National Weather Service investigation found.
The preliminary damage survey conducted by a team from the NWS office in Sacramento and Cal Fire found that damage produced within the large tornado-like vortex generated by the Carr Fire in Redding suggested its top winds exceeded 143 mph.
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